Here’s Grant Brisbee, expressing his feelings about the Giants games with the A’s this week:

“What this series has, though, is potential. It has the potential to surprise us. Baseball is still a trickster coyote, and while we’re all expecting the A’s to win, maybe baseball slaps us upside the head and gives us hope. I’d like that very much. The Giants are the coldest team in baseball, and they have been for a while. They’re about to face the hottest team in baseball. You know how this is going to turn out.

Except we never know how baseball is going to turn out. C’mon, baseball. Surprise us.

I’m thinking Casilla is going to be big in one of these games, best to be at the O.sheishole.
Last time he was closer for SF, the A’s did a walkoff jack against him at that place, by some dude whose name I don’t even come close to remembering. He had a beard, I think. No longer there, in fact wasn’t the guy demoted soon after? Don’t most of the A’s have beards? That started his slide out of the closer’s spot, so Casilla will wipe out that memory with a dominating close of one of these games.
Or, not…

I heard Ray Fosse talking on the KNBR morning show today. He kept calling both Murph and Mac “Murph”. Not that that is too big a deal. But, add to that little bit of cluelessness when voices changed, he just droned on and on after being asked a question, seemingly not to draw a breath as the droning continued. He might be a nice guy, probably is, but there is no way I could listen to him on broadcasts without substantial bourbon or Scotch support…

I don’t know. I am hard-core NL, but I just cannot see myself rooting for the bums. I would probably root for the A’s. As mentioned on the previous thread, when they’re not playing the Giants, I actually like the A’s. This year’s version is fun to watch. And again…when they’re facing the Orange and Black…FUCK THE A’s.

Got excited when I heard Scutaro was playing, then read his back hasn’t improved and he’s just going to play through the pain. How can he even be an effective pH sitting around with a sore back, then jumping up in the 8th to take a crack at a 97 mph fb?

I hear ya Salt re: Scoots, but WTF…let’s roll the dice and see what “Blockbuster” can do. He may surprise us, just like we all hope the Giants surprise us in these two series (nice post on surprises and baseball, Zumiee).

Imagine how enraged someone [this is not directed toward the actual Bladeness] would have to be to actually SUSTAIN the pissed-off-ness through: ticket purchase, booking, security clearance, taxi to O.gasm Stadium, buy ticket, find culprits, etc. Wait. Wait. We actually live in such a world, don’t we? On a related matter, I hear some of the ghetto trash down the block erupting into a very heated exchange. Maybe I had better lie on the floor, below the windows.

I have a sheepish confession to make: the one game I ever attended in OAK, the day Petit was going for the perfecto, I found the fans in the cheap seats in back of the plate decent and refreshingly loyal and down-home. My shocking confession is this: I mused silently to myself: IF I lived here, I might very well identify more with these blue-collar fans than the smarter, richer, fancier folks at AT&T. Of course, that IF would be a huge contingency; that IF would have to wipe away all personal fan memory, all connection to my NY-SF Giants past. That IF would need to erase the existence of Willie Mays, etc. etc. ad nauseam infinitum. In other words, I’d be in a psychotic fugue.

Strange. The games I’ve been to, about 8 over the past 45 years, the fans were very blase. Rowdy in the bleachers? Sure. But the better the seats got, the more disinterested they seemed. I’m talking 35,000 watching Boston during the Bash Bros days, and Dot racing got the biggest crowd response by far. Or being outcheered by Yankee fans.

Chi, I have a question – I have Miller and Krukow announcing the game on my pc feed (to my tv). Who do you have announcing the game? Wondering if it is different for the guys in the SF bay area (I know you are in Sac).

Apropos of nothing, I started the first season of “West Wing” today. I’m liking it a lot. I also like Sorkin’s “Newsroom.” I didn’t like his “Studio 60” show. And I haven’t seen any of his “Sports Night” show. “Sports Night” was a take on ESPN, I think. I’ll check it out at some point.

Apparently Gutierez muffed yet another easy chance, keeping the Giants pitcher’s crap fielding record intact. Followed by a comedy of errors by Craw. How accommodating.
I did come back in time to hear Blanco strike out. After bluffing a bunt and taking a called strike one for the umpteenth time. I’m at a loss to figure out what that is supposed to do to the pitcher and the defense, since if they’ve been paying attention to scouting reports, Blanco does that all the time, yet doesn’t bunt…

Yeah, what kills me is the stubborn refusal to change anything for some of these guys. Blanco’s hads weeks and weeks to change his approach but doies the same shit over and over. Take the strike, swing at the ball, take a pitch, swing and miss.

Well, he does get caught looking on called third strikes fairly often. That’s a bit of a twist.
If Gutierez actually fields that ball and makes a play, maybe none of that Keystone Kops routine happens, and it’s still 3-0, within reach. Do Giants pitchers ever take an infield? As a staff, particularly the relievers, they seem near incapable of making all but the easiest of defensive plays…

Ugly. Vogs was actually not that bad, hitting the 2 guys that both wound up scoring. After Gutierrez (ugh) gave up Callaspo double, I couldn’t watch or listen anymore. Seems every time I watch A’s they win.
Other than Arias, not many bright spots. Panik’s K on the breaking ball close as they got to scoring.

Sidelight, I finished Nate Jackson’s book about pro football, “Slow Getting Up.” Definitely a good read. He describes training camps, locker rooms, coaches (Shanahan in Denver, etc) assistants, endless positions meetings, downtime (and strip clubs and Vegas) and medical treatment. And Bill Walsh.
He’s a real guy who just wants to play, not a Keyshawn “Throw me the damn ball” entitled celebrity who ghost writes his stuff. Most interesting take was his one on weed, which he said NFL should just stop enforcing bans on. While talking about passing the mandatory preseason piss test, his comments on reef were along these lines–pain is a way of life in NFL, and smoking weed gave his body a chance to relax and rest, as opposed to all the other brutal stuff (injections etc) he had to go through to get on playing field.